Getting your body and fingers into a good position will help you play well and develop good habits. In this lesson we will talk about good posture and placement of your fretting fingers, which is REALLY important for beginners....

Video Lesson

Extra Info on Posture

Fretting Finger Position Exercise
Making sure that you understand why it is important to out your fingers just behind the frets is important, if you know why you are more likely to do this the right way and it makes a big difference to beginners because it means that you will not press down as hard and your fingers will hurt less (although all beginners get sore fingers, this is normal, so don't worry about it!).

Pressing too hard will also make some notes go sharp, which will make the chords sound horrible, so really watch out for that.

Do the exercise that I show you in the vid and then always make sure that you get your fretting fingers right up near the frets. Please. REALLY IMPORTANT!!

Classical vs Rock posture
If you want to play classical guitar then use the classical posture (put the guitar on the same leg as your fretting hand). If not then play the "normal" way and place it on the same leg as you strumming hand. For right handed players this means placing your guitar on your right leg.

It will give you a better posture for playing and I think it looks kinda strange when people play rock or pop with the classical posture. Just looks weird ;)

Strap placement and standing up
I think you should set your strap so that the guitar is roughly in the same place when you stand as when you sit. This will make it a lot easier to play, unless you want to play with the strap low, and always practice standing up (not recommended!).

Keeping the neck still
Make sure that your fretting hand is not supporting the guitar neck at all and that the neck is stable when you are playing. The last thing you want is the neck wobbling about when you are trying to practice getting your fingers in a good position!

Thumb placement
Try and keep the thumb positioned behind the neck when you start. Later on you will probably bring it over to play some chords, play bass notes and all sorts of other tricks, but as a beginner keep it behind the neck and it will help develop the muscles that you will need when you play barre chords!

Keep the nails short on your fretting hand
I already mentioned it, but make sure that you keep them nice and short, or the nail will dig into the wood and make your fingers lay too flat. You should use the tips of your fingers to play the notes when you start. Later you might start to use them a little flatter but learn to use the tips first!

Relax your shoulders
Many people develop tension in their shoulders when they play, especially when doing difficult things. Try and keep it relaxed and it will actually make it easier for yourself. Imagine that you fretting hand is nailed to the neck and then just let the whole shoulder and elbow relax. It will help your stretch too, you will always get a better reach when you are relaxed.

Raising the right leg (and crossing your legs)
Some people (including me) find it easier to keep an electric guitar cosy and tight if I lift my right leg a little. That usually means lifting my right knee a bit by putting my toes on the floor instead of the heel, sometimes with the heel resting on the chair leg. Not that you should, or have to, just sometimes I do and there were a few questions about it on the forum.

The other alternative that acheives the same thing is crossing your right leg over your left. Kinda makes a little V shape at your hip which helps hold the guitar securely, I like sitting like that too!

Use a mirror
If you have a bit of a belly or find yourself straining your neck to see the fingerboard, you might consider using a mirror. I used my dads shave mirror when I practiced, pretty much all the time so I could check the position of my fretting hand... but having a big mirror so you can see both hands and your posture would be a great idea too!

£10 music stand vs £1000 chiropractor bill...
Having your sheet music or book sitting next to you on the bed or sofa and twisting around to see it is a sure fire way to give yourself neck and back problems later in life and I can assure you that the small investment of a music stand is well worth it. Just the basic fold up type is fine, you don't need a fancy one (if you got excess cash to blow, check out RAT stands, they are super cool lookin').

Questions from the forum I think will help many others too!

I started playing classical style with the guitar on the left leg, I think I should switch but it's hard. Help!
If you started playing with a "classical posture" then your hands will be used to playing that way and making the switch will feel difficult, but not for long :) like with most things when you try soemthing new it usually takes a little getting used to, and this is no exception. You should find after a few weeks of playing it feels better and you'll probably have a hard time going back to the old way!

That said, some people prefer playing with that calssical posture, and that is fine too!

How does one go about holding top-heavy guitars?
Top heavy guitars can be a pain, my Gold Top is top heavy (the headstock is heavy and the neck pulls toward the ground) and the only thing I have found to help is using a strap and standing up. I don't practice a lot with Les Pauls for this reason, I find the weighting uncomfortable... but I know other people who love the feel of that, so it's just a preference I guess.

When I place all four fingers on the fretboard, my index finger tilt inward towards my other fingers. Is this a bad habit? / or / My index seems to point exactly the other way...
Everybodys hands are a little different, don't worry about it! There are some guitar freaks that seems to have "guitar shaped hands" with perfectly evenly lengthed fingers that seems to be able to stretch to grab any chord with ease... but that's not the case for most players. I have a tiny little finger but I don't find there are many chord grips I can't get... I've seen dudes with HUGE farmers fingers that can still get complex jazz grips and little kids playing mazingly difficult stretches with tiny hands... it's just practice!

How exactly the tip op the finger positions on the string, how near or far from the nail must the string be? Well this poster even included a picture :) But the problem is - that it changes depending on what you are playing. Some fingers might even have the string positioned differently! As a beginner, you probably should be aiming to get the string at the blue arrow, as you progress it moves a bit more toward the yellow one (or past it) because you use the tip of the finger to mute other strings (DO NOT try that if you are a beginner, it'll screw up your technique!).

My hand touches the neck just next to the high-e string. Is the really a bad habit and should I change it?
As a beginner, yes you should change it. You will probably find that your hand will often mute the thin E string, and also hinder your chord change speed. Later on you might find that it's ok to have the hand gripping there, but you are better of not learning that way. This is one of those things that will change as you develop as your guitar playing, but you can't start like that!

And you may also find that you hand is supporting the neck, which is bad too!

HELP!!!!

If you need to ask a question about this lesson - there is a topic set up specifically to help you with this lesson. To help you find it easily you can click the following link and it will take you right the topic. You'll be able to see questions that other people had and ask your own questions! Hopefully one of the very helpful members of our community will be there to help you soon, I do go there and answer stuff too - but there are just too many questions for me to answer alone! So click this link to get help with this lesson!

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